Bete Noire
by Li Kayun
Summary: Shadow SA2 Somewhat AU Fic - The consequences of the human touch, of the ability to heal, the ability to love. The haunting of an angelic ghost, the sound of gunshots and the smell of blood.
1. And if I Touch You

Disclaimer: SA2 belongs to respective owners.

A/N: If Shadow is alive…if he used Chaos Control to bring himself somewhere else…if that somewhere else just wasn't Earth…just wasn't in that universe at all…

Bete Noire

Part 1 // And If I Touch You

"I won't."

"But you have to. Otherwise, you're going to die."

"I won't."

Frantically, "Why not?"

Pitter-patter goes the rain. "Because I can't."

Today was Wednesday. Or today was Thursday. Or maybe today did not have a name. He was so cold, so broken in a thousand places over, so ragged and torn and ripped and dead that he couldn't remember. The only thing he knew was that today was simply today. It was another day, it was raining, there was someone who was talking to him and he was going to die, if he wasn't dead already.

"Do you want me to help you?"

He couldn't scoff yet. Truth to tell, he could hardly talk. The only reason he was able to emit harsh, cracked words from his throat was because he had refrained from moving at all for the last three days, no matter how much he wanted to scream. But if he could scoff, he would have. Wryly, he said, "You sound sincere."

She ignored it. "I'll help you get up." She approached. 

For one thing, Shadow did not like to be ignored. For another, he did not like to be touched. He lay draped across a fallen rotting branch like an autumn leaf – stiff and dry and dead. He discovered in the first minute of sweet consciousness that he could not move. Actually, he could, but it required breaking whatever unbroken bones he had left in his abused skeleton. Therefore, he decided that he would not move.

If he knew where he was, he had forgotten. It seemed very much like Earth to him. There were people. He could smell the suffocating poison smoke of distant cities, could hear the echoes of automobiles rumbling away on some far off road. Yet, in the course of the next three days, he discovered that it was not Earth. The people here talked solely of a foreign tongue that was spoken with more slurs and clicks than any language that existed on Earth. 

Of course, it could have been some obscure dialect he had never heard. He would have concluded that too, had it not been for the people. Shadow was not human, he did not know much about human traits, about heroism, about emotions, about love. However, Shadow knew enough to say that no human was purely cruel. Even a man like Eggman would have enough compassion to at least approach him – a fallen creature on the ground, upon a branch stained dull brown in the rain. 

Then there was this girl. All he knew of her was that her voice belonged to a songbird. She spoke in his tongue. He couldn't see her face. His head was buried under too much debris to lift, but he could hear her. When she first came, he thought he was dead already, and that Maria had finally come. But he wasn't dead; she was not his Maria. He was still cold and he could still smell the reek of dried blood.

"Don't touch me." he hissed.

There was pitiful desperation in her voice. He recognized desperation because he had so much of it, pricking at his consciousness every now and then. "I have to, don't you understand? I can't leave you out here in the rain. You're still bleeding. Don't you know that you're dying?" 

He answered without hesitation. "I know." She knelt on the muddy damp floor, reached for him, pale white moonlight fingers amidst the engulfing darkness. Moistened dirt and impure water clung to the fabric of her dress, rain streaked down her pearled fingers. He couldn't see it, but he could sense it as fewer drops hit his head, obstructed by her hand. Instinctively, he warned, "I said not to touch me. Get away from me." 

Immediately she withdrew. In a meek and humble voice, she asked, "Why?" 

"You don't want to touch me."

"I don't want you to die here."

"But you don't want to touch me." 

Then, there was hardly any rain falling on him at all. They fell on her shoulders instead, as she shielded him with her own umbrella. Softly, she said, "You know, I won't allow you to die. No one else will help you. Let me help you. I want to help you."

If he had strength to laugh, he would have. He settled for a half-croak, half cry. "Don't tell me what to do and don't touch me."

For the second time, she ignored him. She let her fingers rest upon his head. They were warm and painfully soft. He was afraid that for some reason, she would pull away in pain. He was also too afraid to protest, because honestly, he knew he was dying and he didn't want to as much as he thought he did. She did not shy away. Instead, she run her fingers across his forehead lightly, as if she was afraid he would break. He was pretty sure he could. He could hardly feel her brushes, they were so careful. 

Then with the aid of her other hand, she lifted his head and turned him over so that he faced the bleak and empty gray sky. It wasn't beautiful, because it was raining. He felt like dying. That _really_ hurt. He winced and shuddered, stiffening as his body screamed in utter protest, and then he let out a sharp and mangled cry. 

Immediately, there came her touch. She let the umbrella drop to the ground, discarded like an empty package. Crisp and freezing rain fell on their heads, caressed his wounds, making his breath harsh and struggled. As he gasped for air, she cradled his head with her hands, whispering to the rain, to the world, and to Shadow, "Shh…shh…I will help you. Don't worry. You'll be alright. Everything will be alright." 

The umbrella rolled half a circle before it settled and stopped. "You…" Shadow choked. Her image was beginning to cloud. There was rain slipping into his eyes and into his mouth. 

"Shh…"

This most certainly was, he was reasonably sure, death. He came to this conclusion because of two reasons. To begin, his pain was beginning to ease, much to his relief. To end, Maria was looking down at him.


	2. Pellucid

Disclaimer: SA2 belongs to respective owners, again.

A/N: This chapter is purposely a little open ended, free to interpretation.   
Dear Mr./Ms. thefiendishpuppy, don't let me stop you from writing your own story, because after all, I'm just a brash little girl. 

Bete Noire

Part 2 // Pellucid

It was a dusty crackling morning. The thick curtains were pulled apart and there was sunlight that devoured his eyelids. His darkness had become ghouls of ghostly shades of red and blue that wisped to and fro from shadow to silhouette. His damp and soggy floor had become a creaking, age-ridden thing covered with cotton sheets and a very dead hedgehog laying like a man on his deathbed. 

"Close them." he muttered, because he knew he could not stand or rise or close curtains by himself. 

"You've to wake," Maria said, if she were Maria. If she were Maria, she would have closed them. If she were Maria, she wouldn't be here. He honestly wished she was Maria, but Maria wasn't there and the sun was scorching for dawn light. "Shadow."

He tugged and pulled and dragged his eyelids up, threatened his vision to focus from its dizzy, wild blur. He couldn't turn his head yet, could hardly even breathe, and couldn't exactly die yet, so he cast a wayward glance at where he supposed she must have been. He opened his mouth and found that his voice had abandoned him dry and empty. 

"Don't move," she said. Shadow couldn't confirm whether she was floating or not, since he couldn't see that low as she approached gingerly, but he could have sworn even the dust parted for her. As she sat, the mattress pulled down, his legs along with it. "Don't move at all, Shadow."

"It's numb. I can hardly feel a thing." He croaked, watching and studying her through broken, limp eyes as she leaned over him to press her palm against his forehead. Her hands felt were soft but not too feathery; smooth like silk none the less and they were cold – colder than his skin. 

"You've got a fever again." She said softly, bending down to lift a basin of water that drowned a cream white washcloth. "I was afraid of that. Don't worry. I'll just cool you down…" 

"Don't call me that." he hissed, wishing her touch away, but the venom in his voice had seeped back into his throat and burned there instead. He masqueraded aching pain with narrowed eyes and gritted teeth that warned him that they would crumble if he shut his mouth tighter. "Don't ever, ever call me that…"

Lifting her head, lifting her eyes and golden tresses, "That's not your name...?" She looked so horridly curious, intrigued and disappointed; at what, he couldn't fathom. He knew too little, wanted to know too little, cared too little.

Her breath smelled like innocent peppermint. "I don't want your help."

She smiled ever so nicely, as if she had captured and stolen the sunlight from day, and as much as Shadow tried and wished and hoped he could turn away, he was intent on keeping his neck from breaking. Though he protested, he knew very well that he was, indeed, horridly helpless and in dire need of aid, but alas, he was so very, very proud. 

"You're so stubborn." She said, tilting her head and throwing her voice about like a mockingbird. She washed her eyes over his face, threw a testing glance at him and added, "Shadow," while wringing and folding the cloth with careless precision. If he hadn't blinked, he would have seen her lay it upon his forehead and would have known what that relieving coolness against his skin was, wouldn't have forgotten to protest against his name. 

"I don't like water." He quipped simply, closing one eye as a damp corner of the washcloth slid down dangerously near it. Maria, if she was Maria, reached towards him and pulled it up again before folding her hands politely across her lap. His attention never left the hovering edge of the damp material above his eyes as it loomed above his line of vision. However, his voice came as distant as a cloud on a mountain peak. It drifted like air, like very cold, very crisp air. "I didn't tell you my name, Maria."

Just in case, he reasoned with himself. Just in case it was real. 

It was about a minute or two before she began to laugh a sort of laughter between a chuckle and a giggle. It sounded so amused that it was difficult to comprehend. He didn't recall saying anything funny. As the sound filled the sickening silence, he watched her with childish wonder before he could scold himself. Her eyes were closed, her hand barely covering her mouth and her shoulders shook, disheveling her golden hair. Just in case, he prayed, just in case it was Maria.

It took a while before he realized she was crying too – crying and mumbling something in a foreign tongue. 

"Is that your name?" he whispered, as softly as he could manage to whisper. His own voice was comparable to the screeching of nails against a blackboard, but he didn't want to hear that language he couldn't understand. He wanted her to talk to him, because silence and nonsense was not good company. "Maria."

She looked up with eyes that kept tears captive in fear they would stain her porcelain cheeks and he felt so guilty for a crime he had no knowledge of. He didn't want her to stare at him like that, as if she didn't know him just because she didn't. Hopelessly, he groped the silence in hopes that he could find something to say, but all he found was a hasty "I'm sorry," which he wheezed out with amazing difficulty. It did no good, lost to the silence in a battle it couldn't win. 

Her lips moved, forming shapes that meant words he didn't know. "Please talk to me." he pleaded, perhaps sounding a bit more desperate than he hoped.

"You talk a rare tongue, Shadow." She said his name without hesitation. "Few know that language, you know. My grandfather thought it to me, when I was young. He was a professor. It's the only reason I know. I found it so strange to find someone that only spoke that tongue. It was abandoned so many years ago. Where do you come from, Shadow?"

He closed his singed eyes in fear they couldn't hide relief as well as the rest of his face. "I don't know." He said slowly, as if contemplating. "I fell."

"The sky, then." She explained, more to herself than to Shadow. "You came from the sky, so I won't question it any further. Things that fall from the sky are gifts after all, aren't they? Angels fall from the sky. The world hangs in the sky. They're all things to be grateful for, aren't they?" She gave a merry little grin that didn't quite reach her ears, which didn't quite reach her mouth, actually.

The look he gave her was unreadable only because it held too many words at once, undescribable only because there was no word to sum it up. He said, "I'm sorry, Maria."

Blankly and with a voice so fine that it was a shame it was cracked and sounding so broken, "What are you apologizing for?"

He closed his eyes, opened them again, and looked at her as tenderly as he possibly could. His ears rang with gunshots and the sound of space. "I'm sorry, Maria. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." 


	3. Pari Passu

A/N: There isn't more to say. I just hope you liked it. I'm sorry if I disappointed anyone, but this wasn't supposed to be an action/adventure story, more of an emotional thing I just had to write because Shadow is just so…him. And for anyone who actually reads these things, I recommend the song "B.T." from .hack//sign because it's so lovely.

Thanks to: RockChick, Azure Pathos-Sketchit, Sakura Ishtill, Sparky the Seventh Chaos, Thefiendishpuppy, Blackspeed-Mistress, Brain Bloomfield, Sean Catlett and Raye-chan-chan-chan. 

Bete Noire

Part 3 // Pari Passu

"Your Shadow…what was he, when he was alive?" 

"A friend," She said softly, drying her cheeks with the touch of a white, careless sleeve. She had long given up crying and he had waited so patiently for her to stop and compose herself. They sat and both staring off into anything but each other. It was an unsaid agreement that neither remembered making. Yet, it was there. Shadow was sure of such, and he busied himself with the longer hand of a foreign clock that ticked the seconds away into oblivion. "He was…just a friend," said Maria.

Quite frankly, he wasn't sure if he was even allowed to look at her. So many things done in the past, so many years noosed and hung. "I see."

"And your Maria?" she asked politely, as he was afraid she would.

There was a miniscule piece of fluff that made its way from the ceiling to the window – that blasted, open window that made the room almost too bright for him to bear. He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, swapped the air with his left hand and said, "A friend also," without daring to look at her. She was looking at him, he knew, and he could feel her stare. It felt like air.

"Oh," she said, nodding in useless agreement, "I see." 

"Do you really believe me?" he asked painfully, abruptly. For the first time that hour, he mustered enough courage to face her without shrinking away into the safety of the dark. He so wanted to touch her, wanted to do anything, just as long as he knew that she wasn't going to fade away, or be ripped from view as he sped toward the earth again at such speed he could have burned. "About this world, about my other world, you believe this?" 

A very small smile graced her lips. It was rather beautiful. "Why wouldn't I?"

Light, grim chuckles escaped his mouth. "Why would you?" he countered.

She hesitated, her features twisted with such beautiful grace into deep thought, and he watched with innocent wonder. Her eyes wandered, from the right, to the left, to the window, to Shadow. Her expression grew so terribly soft when she smiled again, at him, for him. "Because you are Shadow." And that was that. 

He was taken aback. That was it and there was nothing more to say, but he honestly didn't comprehend it at all. It had never been that simple and suddenly, so suddenly, it was. He reached for her and let his hand drop to choke the covers. "I don't understand that." 

She covered his fingers with her palm, silky and cool. There was no special feeling as she did so, no spark of electricity or rush of burning heat. It was a soft, feathery touch that did nothing more but what it was intended to do – to comfort. He didn't even realize that he was staring, that his eyes were still enough to bore a hole through her hand. 

A frown, and then, "Don't touch me." 

"You won't break, Shadow." She told him. "And neither will I." 

His eyes darted immediately to her face, then they searched, and then they wondered what that possibly could have meant. To his frustration, he could find nothing but eerie sunlight that played on her jaw, nothing but eyelashes that ran lightly over her cheek, and that eldritch, unwavering smile. Opening his mouth, he said, "I don't…"

Closing his mouth, she said, "You don't have to." 

Everything crashed down upon his head. But he was so broken, and so battered, and so horribly torn that he didn't even know where he was! He was so crazy, and so desperate, and so terribly lonely. He wanted to back away from her, wanted to know if she was really who he thought she was, if she was only his wild imagination, wanted to touch her! And he couldn't because he wouldn't. What did that, what did this entire day mean? 

And he was so confused. "You don't have to understand anything, Shadow," she whispered, perhaps because she knew it was all he could take, "You don't have to understand, don't have to know anything if you don't want to." 

He wondered if his eyes were staring, concluded that they were because he could not see anything but her. "Oh." He said. "What am I…supposed to think then? I can't understand anything, I'm afraid I don't want to understand anything. What am I supposed to do? I'm afraid you're going to fade away like my Maria." He told her. 

"Like your Maria?"

He nodded twice. "Like my Maria, who abandoned me because she was afraid I was going to die, abandoned me for death. It was a long time, you know. It's been such a long time, I don't think I remember what to do." And then he laughed a bitter, rotten laugh. "She told me something, but I'm not sure exactly what. Save the world, destroy the world…I think…it all seemed the same to me."

Who was that who had just thrown her arms around him? He looked up, couldn't see Maria, realized it was because her head was beside his, her body against his, her hands clinging hopelessly to his back. "You feel so dead, Shadow, you know that?" She said, her voice was so fine and cracked and hoarse. "So cold and so limp. Don't do anything, don't try to remember, because it's alright now, you see? Everything is alright now, so you can rest." 

He didn't care if the world stood still, if it spun off its axis into the sun, didn't notice that morning sunlight had faded into orange dusk, that shadows had begun to creep into the night. So slowly, ever so very slowly that it seemed years passed by, he wound his arms around her and felt her breathing against the side of his face, felt that wetness against his cheek although he wasn't crying, felt her touch and every other sensation that flooded in. 

"Maria." He called. No one was going to fade away. No one was going to disappear into the empty abyss of space. "Maria? I want to try…to be your Shadow." 

She stilled and he knew she smiled. "I'd like that." Her arms tightened. "Would you mind then…would you mind if I tried to be your Maria? We could just…try, but it'd be lovely and not as lonely. You wouldn't have to worry, have to do anything but try. We can be as slow as we want, never have to bother about time." She stopped, and then added, "I will never fade away." 

"My Maria." he repeated, "I'd like that. I really would." 

Fin


End file.
